The city of Binghamton and I have been working through a philosophical disagreement over the last few months. It goes like this: I don’t think that I should have to gather trash off the streets of Downtown Binghamton as punishment for carrying an open beer around the corner from my house. The city judge disagrees, and he has the state behind him. So be it — there are worse things than an early morning walk, and trash picking is surprisingly relaxing.
Equipped with a picker, which at this point feels like a third arm, I’ve spent eight hours so far scouring city streets for debris drifting on an aimless course, across sidewalks and through gutters, trampled and tracked, neatly placed beside trees and benches then strewn outward by an idle walker’s kick: the rotting cigarettes and red-cupped wounded soldiers of State Street, the wrinkled snack packages and coffee cups in front of Manley’s gas station, a mutilated Barbie, a rose flattened against cold pavement. All of this trash stepped over without being seen, hidden by obscurity.
Being thrown out of normal circumstances, out of comfort and routine, sometimes awakens strange thoughts; so as I wandered Downtown, spellbound and dazed, I began to see a different side of Binghamton.
I saw points of sun glistening in the waves of the Chenango River, an ancient witness. Each weekend it sees an exodus of students, over its bridge and back, in the late night and early morning, to bars and parties. For years, it felt sewage and chemicals pouring out of an industrial city into its waters. It heard marching orders out of the lips of an American general in 1779, sending his troops on a course of war with the Iroquois. It nourished Native Americans for centuries. These secrets hover like mist over the water, calling out silently and mostly ignored.
I saw statues and relics expressing the aspirations of people alive and dead, some abandoned like the windblown edifices of ancient people, others vibrant like a living person — like history congealed into physical form, pointing toward the future. In bust, Christopher Columbus casts his eyes westward from the lawn of the green-domed courthouse, which is itself crowned by the embodiment of justice, a woman holding a scale over the city with the constant question: is justice being served?
Down the street, a wall of graffiti murals at eye level is like a series of dreams, like the images of a collective unconscious: a one-eyed woman, wild red hair radiating outward, painted blue with a look of sadness and ambivalence; a ship sailing through calm seas to a tropical island; the view Downtown, but skewed and distorted, absurd, threatening and comic at once; a picture of Earth with the words “one love” and a peace sign. Lost on a dingy side street, the display is a reminder that no matter how gray the sky stays in Binghamton, the people are colorful and full of life.
I saw churches everywhere, still the weekly homes for many residents seeking comfort and faith, where some generations found someone to thank for abundance, cheap loans and plentiful jobs … where others sought protection from scourges like financial crises, the same today as in 1929. Like me, more and more people choose to leave the pews empty — a personal decision, of course, some might say is a good thing, but also a guarantee that another aspect of the life of our parents, grandparents and on, will fall into the oblivion of history.
So the next time you go Downtown, whether it’s to pick garbage or go to the bars or anything else, take a minute and look around. Like the trash below your feet, the past and the future are there for the taking, looking us all in the face without most of us ever realizing it.